Editing Alfred Schütz (section)

====The four divisions of the lifeworld====
Schutz's division of Husserl's ''lebenswelt'' (the mundane '[[lifeworld]]') into four distinct sub-worlds is perhaps his most influential theoretical contribution. The theory of the lifeworld is that social experience creates a world that is separated between:<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}}

# the social reality that has been directly experienced; and
# social reality that is on the horizon of direct experience.

The former consists of the ''[[umwelt]]'' ('environment'), the environment defined through the perception and action of agents. The latter refers to an environment of consociates, or fellow-men; of the man who "shares with me a community of space and a community of time."<ref name=":2">Schütz, ''Phenomenology''</ref>{{Rp|163}}

In contrast, those who Schutz did not deem his fellow-men, he put them in three classes:<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}}

# the world of contemporaries (''[[mitwelt]]'');
# the world of predecessors (''vorwelt''); and
# the world of successors (''folgewelt'').

The last two represent the past and the future, whereas one's contemporaries share a community of time, if not space, and are different from the predecessors and successors because it is possible for them to become fellow-men or consociates.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxvii}}

Schutz was interested in documenting the transition from direct to indirect experience and the series of experiences in between.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|177}} He also wanted to map the progressive [[anonymisation]] of the contemporaries (''mitwelt)'', which was a measurement of increasing anonymity of "my absent friend, his brother whom he has described to me, the professor whose books I have read, the postal clerk, the Canadian Parliament, abstract entities like Canada herself, the rules of English grammar, or the basic principles of jurisprudence."<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|xxviii}} Schutz argued that the more one goes into the contemporary world, the more anonymous the contemporary inhabitants become, with the most anonymous being artifacts of any kind that hold meaning, context, and suggest there are unknown people.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|181}}

In his later writings, Schutz explored how everyday social experiences that pertain to these dimensions are most often intertwined in varying degrees of anonymity.<ref>Alfred Schütz, ''The Problem of Social Reality'' (The Hague 1973) p. 352</ref> For instance:<ref>Schütz, ''Social Reality'' p. 352</ref><blockquote>[I]f in a face-to-face relationship with a friend I discuss a magazine article dealing with the attitude of the President and Congress toward China, I am in a relationship not only with the perhaps anonymous contemporary writer of the article but also with the contemporary individual or collective actors on the social scene designated by the terms, 'President', 'Congress', 'China'</blockquote>